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S.Africa's Eskom Says first power produced at Medupi's last unit

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 27 (Reuters) - South Africa's state power firm Eskom said on Tuesday it had produced power and synchronized its last remaining unit at its Medupi power station to the grid.

Eskom said it produced 190 MW at Medupi’s unit 1 for the first time, making it the last of the six units to be synchronised to the national grid. "Once Unit 1 has attained full power, it will be a step closer to reach commercial operational which occurs within six to nine months after first synchronisation," Eskom said in a statement. It added that the next step would be testing and optimisation of unit 1 in order to generate full power of 800MW.

To supplement its ageing power plants, Eskom is developing the Kusile and Medupi projects, but both are years behind schedule and tens of billions of rand over budget. (Reporting by Tanisha Heiberg; Editing by David Gregorio)